Month: June 2015

It’s been reported that Latin America has been shaken with the brutal murder of a 14-year-old girl who had become pregnant from her boyfriend. The outrage caused by increasing murder of women and the violence committed against them as such have sparked a new wave of protests against the prevalent culture of violence across a number of countries.
According to La Nacion, in 2008 in Argentina a woman was murdered every 40 hours, which increased to one woman per 30 hours by 2014. The media reported 1808 such murders for the said period, and these are certainly alarming figures
( http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1798662-en-defensa-de-la-mujer-un-clamor-recorrio-el-pais-niunamenos ).
Upon reading the gruesome news, I wanted to point out once again (you may want to check out my previous post on the issue) the conditions in Turkey, which is becoming more like Latin America in terms of violence against women. It seems to be the case on the basis of available figures, that between 2002-2009 femicide in Turkey increased by 1400 %. While only 66 women were murdered in 2002, during the first 10 months of 2011 this was up to 935 (see: http://www2.tbmm.gov.tr/d24/7/7-3307s.pdf ).

It is clear that murdering of women many times results in family tragedies and increases in existing inequalities in social life. Women’s role in social and economic development is now well-documented, and therefore, more serious policy re-orientation is needed in these countries in order to secure the lives of citizens, and more particularly of women. Sadly, it looks like the legal measures taken against this problem are not effectively implemented in either Latin America or in Turkey. Paying lip service to women’s rights or gender equality does not give us too much mileage; it is time that governments took this more seriously and acted steadfastly.